Dipper had seen a lot of strange and disturbing things this summer. There were the monsters- gnomes, ghosts, undead, and more- many of which he had only barely escaped. There was the shapeshifter that, in its final moments before being frozen, had taken on the shape of the boy screaming in agony. And, over the course of the last few hours, he had watched himself fall down the stairs head-first, stab himself with silverware, and attempt to cause his own sister grievous harm.
But none of that could prepare him for the sight of his own body crashing into the floor from a dozen feet above the ground.
Dipper floated towards his body to assess the damage. His limbs were broken, his neck twisted. His body was covered head to toe in wounds, though some of the injuries had been present hours before the impact. But, worst of all, his body was completely motionless, lacking even the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest that the boy had previously taken for granted.
His body's eyelids closed as Bill flew out and returned to his usual triangular shape, his eye still focused on the boy who had become his puppet. Dipper immediately flew over to his body, but when he tried to enter, the boy found that he had phased right through to the other side. He floated around his body again and again, but every attempt to unite his mental and physical self once more proved futile. He passed through his own body as if… as if it were just another object.
"Looks like my work here is done!" The demon tipped his hat towards Dipper. "So long, Pine Tree!"
A second later, before Dipper could fully process the scene around him and respond to Bill's taunt, the demon vanished.
And then Mabel started screaming, a scream that seemed to last for hours on end, leaving Dipper unable to think of anything else. He flew up to her side and saw that she had not emerged unscathed from the encounter either, bearing several scrapes and scratches from her fight with Bill. Mabel's voice grew hoarse, and after several minutes she grew quiet, staring down silently at the body that had once held her brother.
"Mabel? Are you okay?" Dipper said, unsure what he expected as a response. But Mabel didn't stir from her reverie, her downward stare undisturbed.
He had not lost her, but she had lost him.
Mabel stood very close to the edge from which her brother had fallen, and Dipper worried that she might do something reckless in her fragile emotional state, but eventually she stepped away and raced down the steps of the catwalk, her feet loudly clanging in a theatre that was otherwise far too quiet.
Grunkle Stan embraced his great-niece, and the two headed towards the exits, him mumbling words of comfort. Dipper tried once more to enter his body, and once more found that he had only succeeded in floating across the stage. He followed behind his beloved family members as they walked away, arm outstretched, giving off a call that he knew would go unheard.
"MABEL!"